Electrical installation, repair, or maintenance work typically requires electricians and other persons to perform a series of measurements and inspections while at work sites. For example, an electrician may need to precisely measure various distances or spans of electrical wire installation locations to determine the length of wires required, inspect a wire spool to check whether there is a wire long enough remaining on the spool, and check the length of a cut wire before installing it at the installation location. Further, after installation of the wire and/or other electrical components, the electrician may need to scan the installation location for hot spots or cold spots that may indicate various types of electrical faults, and then check various electrical parameters (e.g., a voltage, current, resistance, capacitance, or other parameter) of specific wires or components where electrical faults are suspected.
In another example, electricians performing lighting installation or retrofitting (e.g., replacing incandescent bulbs or other lighting sources with newer, more energy-efficient light sources) often need to measure light intensity before the retrofit to determine the type and number of new lights that are needed. Electricians working on the retrofit may benefit from the ability to measure and compare pre-retrofit and post-retrofit power consumptions to verify and demonstrate the reduction in power consumption. The ability to measure distance may also be useful to determine the height of the lights and the area of the space being lit.
However, electricians typically limit themselves to carrying a single device with limited capabilities (e.g., a multimeter) to work sites because of the unavailability of other instruments and/or the inconvenience of carrying and switching between multiple instruments. Further, conventional devices used for electrical work typically do not provide thermal imaging capabilities to perform fault detection and other tasks.